Power supply was a big problem for distribution co-ops in 1930s and 1940s. The investor-owned utilities either wouldn’t sell power to the unwanted newcomers in market, or jacked up the price of it unfairly when and where a public utilities commission would let them get away with it.

Co-op managers and directors were always getting together to discuss ways to break free. That’s what was going on at the now-historic Forrest Hotel in Hattiesburg, Mississippi on Friday, April 4, 1941. In attendance were representatives of Coast Electric, Jones County Electric (now Dixie Electric), East Mississippi Electric, Singing River Electric and Southern Pine Electric.

Before they adjourned, the distribution systems organized South Mississippi Electric (now Cooperative Energy), a generation and transmission system, and four days later received a charter of incorporation from the Secretary of State.

That October, the federal Rural Electrification Administration (REA) approved a $2.1 loan for SME to build a power plant on the banks of the Pearl River in Columbia, Miss. It would burn pine wood chips, an obvious fuel choice in a region known as the Piney Woods.

Less than two months later, the world was on fire—Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, and the next day United States entered World War II. All industrial construction not essential to the war effort halted.

Four painful years passed before Mississippi’s boys came home from overseas and co-ops got back to electrifying the state’s rural areas. Then in 1947, Southwest Electric Power Membership Association joined SME as its sixth member.

The G&T idled for the next 11 years before hiring a part-time general manager in 1958. The dream of co-op control of power supply began to solidify two years later when SME applied for its first Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (permit) to build a power plant in Jones County, not far from Hattiesburg. This time the fuel of choice is natural gas.

The Mississippi Public Service Commission issued the certificate in March 1963, and a few days later Mississippi Power Company and Mississippi Power & Light filed a lawsuit to try to stop the G&T from breaking ground.

The five-year court battle that ensued went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1968 refused the two IOUs’ request to either rehear or reverse the Mississippi appeals court’s decision.

By this time, REA had approved funds for SME to build the Jones County plant, in the unincorporated community of Moselle. The funds were released to the G&T on August 29, 1967. Less than a month later SME opened its first headquarters in the Humble Oil Building, a landmark in Hattiesburg. SME now had a full-time general manager and a small staff.

Construction of Plant Moselle, a baseload plant with three 59-megawatt natural gas units, proceeded without interruption until August 1, 1970, the day the plant went into commercial operation—a little over 29 years since those managers and directors from five distribution co-ops had met in Hattiesburg to find a way to get control of their power supply destiny.

Today, South Mississippi Electric is called Cooperative Energy and serves 456,000 homes and businesses through 11 member distribution systems. The G&T ships power through 1,902 miles of transmission lines and reaches into 55 of the state’s 82 counties—more than half the land mass.

In 2003, Plant Moselle was renamed The J.T. Dudley, Sr. Generation Plant Complex after the part-time general manager the G&T hired in 1958. It is one seven generating plants in the Cooperative Energy’s power portfolio.